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All right, well, I hope you had a good weekend. I had a great weekend. I went to church for the first time in a couple of weeks physically because we've been sick and there's been back -to -back winter storms on Sundays, which is a big problem for me because I go to church in the mountains and I have to travel an hour to get there and all of that.
So I was there with everybody, all the brethren, all the people that I've missed for a couple of weeks and it was great.
And I wanted to do this video because during church, my pastor, you know, he's up in front of everybody and, you know, the room is mixed.
You know, we've got people that don't wear masks, we've got people that do wear masks and there's no judgment. We're not passing judgment on each other and stuff like that.
I know some people are like totally anti -mask and would pass judgment, but we're not doing that at our church. My pastor got in front of everybody and he just, he offered prayers for Pastor Coates from Alberta, Canada, who's been imprisoned because he won't stop meeting for church.
And he mentioned from the pulpit that their church was planning on meeting again and they're going to continue to meet and, you know, hopefully the next pastor doesn't get arrested, but they're just going to keep meeting and all of that kind of stuff.
And so we prayed for Pastor Coates as a church, you know, as a community.
And, you know, after we did and after the service, I just got so,
I got so furious. And I think it was a righteous fury because, you know,
I get a lot of letters and I got another one this past week in my P .O. box. By the way, if you want to send me a letter,
P .O. Box 211, Keene, New Hampshire. But this letter, man, this is a guy who's in college and he was asking for my advice about what to do because his church isn't meeting still.
Like a year later, his church is still doing Zoom church. And he just asked me what to do because he doesn't have a car.
And, you know, I think his father is involved in the church somehow. So he was a little bit of a nuanced situation.
And the reality is, is like, you know, if you leave a church that's still closed, you're not leaving the church.
The church shut down. It doesn't exist anymore. Like like like when the church stops meeting because the government says so or they're too scared because of Corona virus, like they're just too scared to be a church at this point.
They're they've decided they're not going to be a church anymore. That's the facts. That's what's actually happened.
So you can gussy it up any way you want. You can cite Romans 13. You can say, well, you know,
Zoom church is still real church. You can pretend in plain fantasy world all you want. But what's actually happened is your church has shut down for a year and you haven't gone to church in a year because you didn't decide to find a new church.
I'm not mad at you if you're in this situation. I'm not. I'm really mad at your pastors for putting you in this situation.
Guys, I have to say this. If you know anything about me, you know that I don't recommend leaving churches lightly.
I don't. In fact, I encourage people to do everything they can except for leave a church. But the reality is, if your church has closed down, you haven't left your church.
The church, the church has shut down. That's what's happened. And sometimes churches shut down and that's
OK. So you need to recognize what's actually happened and stop buying their propaganda and their nonsense that came from people that look like this.
This is the thing like like when I got so uppity about Jonathan Lehman, I took a lot of flack from conservatives, people that say, well, it's just friendly fire.
Those brothers at the Defendant Confirmed podcast, it was just friendly fire. And the thing is like like Jonathan Lehman might be your friend, but you need to understand that he was used as a force for evil.
He encouraged many pastors to shut down and to be cowards in a in a in a period when it was time to stand up.
It was time to be strong. It was a time to be a shepherd for goodness sake. Like being a shepherd is a hard job.
Nobody's denying that being a shepherd is a hard job. But when the going gets tough, that's when you need to start being an actual shepherd.
Like we've been sitting fat and happy for a long time, really haven't had too much to worry about. Now there's work to be done.
And shepherds are like, well, hold on, we'll just have Zoom church. We'll have a conference call, video conference technology.
It just is a real blessing. Yeah, it is a real blessing when you're sick or when there's a snowstorm or something like that.
It's amazing to be able to still hear your pastor's sermon and to still see your brothers and sisters in the pews singing along.
You can sing from home. It's a real blessing, but it's not supposed to be how church is just permanently because the government said so because we don't have enough cultural capital.
This is the this is the clown that said we don't have enough cultural capital to obey Christ right now. Do we really want to spend our cultural capital on obeying
Christ right now? Like and this was all in the wake of John MacArthur having some courage and saying, yeah,
I was wrong this entire time. There were a lot of small pastors that don't have a big platform that were right.
They got this one right. I got it wrong, John MacArthur said. So now we're going to reverse course and we're going to start recognizing the fact that Caesar does not have authority over whether the church meets or not.
I gave John MacArthur a lot of credit for that because he wasn't just pretending like he didn't have this wrong.
He admitted he had this wrong. And so he was reversing course. Good on John MacArthur. So then John MacArthur does that.
And this little weasel snake says, wait, don't do it. And it's not it's not harmless.
This is not like a just like, oh, just a small difference in opinion. Like it actually harms people. If you could read the letter that I wrote over or that I read over the weekend from my
P .O. box, you can hear in the tone of it, just sort of like just the
I don't know if it's pain, but it's just like an anxiety, like a like a like what do I do? And I get messages like this all the time of people that just don't know what to do anymore.
Like they're just in a bad place. And it's because of weasel snakes like Jonathan Lehman.
Jonathan Lehman doesn't play for the right team. He doesn't play for the right team. Anyone who encourages you to not go to church or as a pastor to not freaking open up your church, that person's not playing for the right team.
That person is all talk. The Bible talks about people like this. They're all talk. They say they have faith, but they don't have works.
And this is what I said on Gab today. And I stand by this. Those of you who are praying, you're praying for Pastor Coates, but you won't open your church on Sunday.
That's the equivalent of the man that James talks about in the scripture who tells the poor person, be warm and filled, but doesn't give them any food when they've got food to give.
Be warm and filled, but doesn't do anything to help them out. That's that's a hypocrite.
That is someone who says they have faith, but does not have works. What does the Bible say about that faith?
It says that that faith is dead. In other words, it isn't faith. In other words, it's fake. It's false.
And Jonathan Lehman demonstrates on the daily that his faith is false.
He doesn't have the works. If he won't be a shepherd at this time and say, we're going to open up our church and we're going to, and he's going to encourage everyone because that's what the scripture requires at the time.
When his church is probably open right now, who knows? But at the time he was saying, don't open up your church.
It's too dangerous. And then he's attending the black lives matter rally. Like, it's just like unbelievable. The amount of insanity that's gone on here.
So don't listen to weasels like this. Instead. I would argue that you should listen to James. You should listen to James.
You see, here's the thing. If someone is, is lacking in daily food, someone doesn't have clothing and stuff like that.
What does Jesus say? Right? Jesus says, if you have clothing, share it with someone who doesn't. If you have food, share it with someone who doesn't.
What Jesus does not say is all you got to do. If you see someone who's hungry is say, be warm and filled.
Bless you. Like that's hypocrisy, that's hypocrisy. And James picks that up. The brother of Christ picks that up and says, depart.
One of you says to him, depart in peace, be warm and filled. Notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body.
What does it profit? What he means is it doesn't profit anybody. You see, that's faith without works.
In other words, that is dead faith. That's not correct faith. That's not real faith. That won't do any good for you or anybody.
And so if you want to support pastor Coates, fine, pray for him, but then open up your church, get his back.
That's how you do this. You get this guy's back. If you're in, if you're in Canada or in the United States, wherever you are, say we're having church regardless of what you say, and if you want to arrest us all, then go ahead and arrest us all.
That's how this is going to work. And it's like, how could you even think about offering your prayers?
To pastor Coates. And yet you're having zoom church because the government told you not to meet. You can't do it.
You can't do it. That is the equivalent of what James is talking about of dead faith.
Be warm and filled. I know I've got some food here, but I'm just going to pray that you'd be warm and filled instead of actually giving you the things that are required to be warm and filled.
It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. You guys need to take a real hard look at who you follow.
If you follow guys like this, like you really got to reconsider the where were they in the moment of, of need?
Where were they in that moment? You see what I'm saying? Like, like they were, they were busy writing articles quick.
You remember how that came out? John MacArthur said, Hey, we're going to meet on Sunday. And like within five, five minutes,
Jonathan Lehman had an article. Whoa, don't do that. Wait, wait, wait, stop doing cultural capital.
And this guy's worried about cultural capital with the pagan government that pagan culture that hates his guts. He's worried about getting capital with those guys.
Don't follow leaders that are worried about pleasing the culture enough so that they can have enough cultural capital to obey
Christ. You see to them that that calculus doesn't work. You see, they have to please the culture enough in order to be allowed to please
Christ. That's not how this works, guys. That's not how it works. You have to please Christ. Forget about what the culture says.
They they're going to hate you. They're going to call you all kinds of names. They're going to say all kinds of, of, of evil and speak against you and all this stuff.
But you need to be laser focused on serving the one God. This is that, that cultural capital thing blew my mind.
It's like, I need to please the culture enough so that I have, so that they allow me the privilege to please my
God. Jonathan, you've got the wrong God. It's, it's really just that simple.
You, you serve the wrong God. And the quicker we abandon these people and say, guys, we've warned you once.
We've warned you twice. Now I'm going to have nothing more to do with you. The better, the better. And so what we need to do is start getting people like pastor
Coates is back. We got to start getting his back and saying, look, if you're going to arrest him, then you're going to have to arrest us all because we're all going to do it.
We're all going to disobey your nonsense. We don't, we don't, we don't live by those lies anymore.
Guys, if you're fine, if you find yourself in a situation where your church is still closed down and you're like, well, what do
I do? Do I find another church? Yes. You find another church because when your church closes down and it's no longer a church, you still have a responsibility to meet with the saints and gather with the saints.
So you need to figure that out. Now that might require you to leave long -term friends that you used to go to church with every
Sunday. And that's not your fault though. Your pastors made you do that. Your pastors have forced your hand.
If they've closed down their church, you might say, well, you know, but the thing is like, the thing is like,
I just want to wait because they said there's going to be, they're going to open soon. It's no guys, they've shut down the church.
And so you need to find your church. I was a part of a church plant that shut down and guess what? That was not an excuse for anyone to no longer go to church.
Right? And so if you're having zoom church, that's not real church. It's not real. It's a blessing in a pinch.
It's good to have in a pinch. I've utilized it in a pinch. We were sick. There was snow. We couldn't make it to church.
Right. And it's not ideal to live as far as I do from a church. But the problem is I can't find a single church.
That's not, that's calm down for a second there. Anyway. Um, so, so here's the thing, guys, if you're still worried about what to do and your church is closed down, you have no choice, you have to obey
Christ. It's not really up to you. You have to go and meet with the church, right? You have to meet with the assembly on Sunday.
You have to worship God at a worship service on Sunday. So you need to figure that one out. If your church is not meeting, you have to figure that that's their, that's their call.
They have to answer to Christ for that. But you have to answer to Christ for you and your family about what you did when your church closed down.
Zoom church is not church. Zoom church is not church. So go find yourself a church, go worship the
Lord, go obey every single thing he's commanded and do it with joy and gladness and, and just understanding that you have mercy and grace and you're covered by Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.